Its A Sick Plan

Congressman Joe Wilson is catching a lot of heat for yelling "You lie" during the president's speech when the president stated that illegal aliens will not be covered under his health plan. I agree with the criticism of the Congressman. During a presidential address, you should be respectful. However, I bet that most of the people who are criticizing Wilson are the same people who thought that the rat who threw his shoes at President Bush was the funniest thing since Eddie Murphy in the 80's.

By the way, it is a lie when the president says that illegal immigrants won't be covered in his plan. Here is how you know it is a lie:

1) There is no enforcement provision in the bill. You can say all you want that illegal aliens won't be covered, but if there is nothing specific in the bill that requires proof of status (citizenship/permanent resident) and criminal penalties for hospitals that don't abide- it is a toothless provision.

2) The president is on the record as wanting to grant amnesty for illegal aliens. So what is the point of saying illegal aliens won't be covered when he plans to remove the "illegal" from their status?

Timing is everything in life. And timing will tell you a lot about the president's health care proposal. After telling us how desperate the situation is, that we need to pass a bill now (or even before now, if you listen to his 28 previous speeches on health care since he took office) he then tells us that coverage for those who don't currently have it will begin...... 4 years from now! Hey, Mr. Prez, don't put off until tomorrow what you can do the day after tomorrow. Why is that random start date important? It takes us to 2013 as a start date, a year after the next presidential election. He knows its a quagmire, and he wants to pay no political ramifications when this thing blows up.

As I have said before, I suck at math. But so does the prez. He is going to mandate preventive testing such as mammograms because he says it saves money when you discover diseases early on.

Sounds nice, right? And reasonable too. But it will not save money. It will be a money pit. It will break insurance companies, which seems to be the point.

Here's why it will break the back of insurance companies: say for every one discovery of colon cancer, you save $20,000 in costs down the line. But if you are mandated to test everybody, you may have to test 100 people to get to that one positive test. If each test costs say, $2,000, you are hemorrhaging cash.

He's got to know that, right?


Baldman's Health Care Proposal:

1) Massive Tort Reform. Implement a loser pays system in medical malpractice cases. You will see immediate results. Doctors won't have to order endless tests, with one eye on a potential lawsuit, and the other on the patient. When that happens, which is where we are now, health care costs become astronomical. We implement tort reform, insurance costs will go way down. Moreover, doctors that have been driven away from high risk areas of practice will return to those specialties in droves.

2) Tear down the state borders. Let insurance companies compete with each other across state lines. Competition drives prices down.

The end result from these two reforms would be a massive amount of savings in health care costs, which will allow more people to sign on to a plan.

No government takeover. No co-ops. No mandates that everyone must be rounded up to sign health care papers.